Gait analysis for designing a new assistive knee brace

Assistive knee brace is a species of wearable lower extremity exoskeletons. In this research, an assistive knee brace was developed by integrating a multifunctional actuator with a custom-made knee-ankle-foot orthosis. In the study, the location of the actuator is moved up to the lateral side of the hip, instead of knee joint. Waist belt and shoulder belt are appended on the knee brace. This paper aimed to improve the design of the assistive knee braces through gait analysis. By walking with the knee braces, the spatial and temporal gait parameters, joint kinematics and joint kinetics parameters were evaluated, and the changes from normal walking were compared as well. The experimental results showed that walking with the developed knee brace provided minimal hindrance to the wearer. © 2011 IEEE.